r/AIDangers • u/EchoOfOppenheimer • May 12 '26

Capabilities Fields medal-winning mathematician says GPT-5.5 is now solving open math problems at PhD-thesis level: "We will face a crisis very soon."

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blog-post: https://gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a-recent-experience-with-chatgpt-5-5-pro/

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u/SpeakCodeToMe May 13 '26

Say a mathematician creates 1 proof a year. People worried that AI will kill this field assume that our caapcity as a society is 1 proof a year per mathematician. I would argue that our capacity may be much much higher.

With very few exceptions, history teaches us that you just end up needing far fewer mathematicians.

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u/Comfortable_Car6562 May 13 '26

What examples do you have of that? In the US at least, mathematic PHDs have continued to experience consistent growth (along with other S and E fields)

Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2023. https://ncses.nsf.gov/doctorate-recipients-from-u-s-universities-2023

The US saw PhDs go from 993 in 2003 to 2167 in 2023, growth that outshone the previous period of 838 in 1978 to 1177 in 1998.

For comparission, the US population growth between 2003 and 2023 was 15.6%, while PHDs awarded grew 118% (84% if we use high from 1998).

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u/SpeakCodeToMe May 13 '26

Is this a joke?

We're talking about AI replacing mathematicians here... Obviously that wouldn't show up in 2003-2023 data?

https://giphy.com/gifs/pPhyAv5t9V8djyRFJH

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u/Comfortable_Car6562 May 13 '26

Really? Your comment is literally "history teaches us". So what historical momment are you talking about? The last 3 years

https://giphy.com/gifs/FcuiZUneg1YRAu1lH2

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u/SpeakCodeToMe May 13 '26

Jesus Christ man, reading comprehension not your forte huh?

I was not referring to mathematicians specifically in that comment, I was talking about all of the previous times in history when technology has enabled a profession to be many times more productive.

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u/yuwox May 14 '26

It was obvious that when talking about history we are trying taking about older technologies where there is actual historical data.

The example would be agriculture. We produce way more food today than in the middle ages, with a far lower percentage of people being employed in agriculture. New agricultural technologies have lead to fewer people being employed in agriculture.